CNN Reports By Nadine Schmidt, Tara John Updated Jan 14, 2020
This is a real-life story of my testimony as a Christian and Messianic Jew. In 2012, I began my return home to Judaism.
As of today, no one has come forward to testify that the evidence for Yeshua as the Messiah of Israel is True.
Hazan Gavriel ben David -Legal name: Archie Lee Hunnicutt, JR
Doubts have emerged about Moshe Peter Loth’s testimony, Christian Charisius/POOL/AFP/Getty Images/FILEBerlin —
The testimony of a Florida man in one of Germany’s last Nazi trials has been called into question after German media raised doubts about his claims that he was imprisoned in a concentration camp as an infant.
Moshe Peter Loth, the 76-year-old American witness and co-plaintiff in the trial of a former prison guard known as “Bruno D.,” hit the headlines in November when he tearfully hugged the accused in court and said, “Watch, everyone, I will forgive him.”
Loth, who says he is a Holocaust survivor, claimed he and his Jewish mother were imprisoned at Stutthof concentration camp, in Nazi-occupied Poland, after his birth on September 2, 1943, according to his lawyer.
He said he was the victim of medical experiments and had to live as an outcast even after the war, according to his lawyer.
It was at the camp that a prison number was tattooed on his and his mother’s arms, according to documents Loth submitted to the court, a spokesperson for the court told CNN.
On Monday, Hamburg district court spokesperson Kai Wantzen told CNN that research by the presiding judge Anne Meier-Göring found ”prison numbers were only tattooed in Auschwitz [concentration camp] but not at Stutthof.”
The court – which has been reviewing Loth’s documentation – therefore did not view Loth’s testimony as ”particularly credible and plausible,” Wantzen said.
It is unclear whether Loth and his mother, Helene, were incarcerated at the camp together, the court added.
On Monday, Loth withdrew from the trial. He has not withdrawn his testimony, Wantzen added.
Loth’s lawyer, Salvatore Barba, declined to respond to numerous requests for comment from CNN in the past week and instead referred CNN to his statement published by German news magazine Der Spiegel in December.
Barba said in a statement on Monday that his mandate had ended “after my client himself withdrew from the co-lawsuit.”
Through his lawyers, Loth told German news magazine Der Spiegel, which first reported doubts about his testimony, that he “had spent his whole life searching for his true identity.”
Red flags
Cracks began to emerge in Loth’s account in December when Der Spiegel reported that Loth’s family was not Jewish. The magazine said it had seen documents from the registry office in Dortmund and church register entries, as well as one other unspecified registry office, suggesting they were Protestant.
CNN has not been able to independently verify Der Spiegel’s reporting on the religion of Loth’s family, and has reached out to the registry office in Dortmund.
Der Spiegel reported that Loth’s mother was imprisoned in the camp, citing records from Stutthof concentration camp. She was held for “education” for a short time in March 1943, and her inmate number was 20038, according to the report.
According to camp records seen by CNN, Helene Loth was released from the camp on April 1, 1943, months before Loth was born in September 1943.
Der Spiegel’s investigation, as well as CNN’s, found no evidence of Helene Loth’s Jewish origin in the Stutthof concentration camp’s registry.
Barba told Der Spiegel that Loth had been “seeking his true identity all his life” and often only had oral accounts to rely on. Many questions are “unfortunately not answered to this day,” Barba told the magazine, adding that: “so far, he has found no reason to doubt these (oral) reports.”
The lawyer for Holocaust survivor Judith Meisel, who is one of 36 co-plaintiffs in the case, told CNN that Der Spiegel’s report “casts a shadow over this criminal case.”
Ongoing trial
The trial of 93-year-old “Bruno D.” is due to wrap up in May, the court said. According to the indictment, the former Nazi guard knowingly supported the “insidious and cruel killing” of 5,230 people at Stutthof.
Despite his advanced age, the defendant is being tried in a youth court because he was 17 years old when he joined the SS as a guard at the camp, according to a press release from Hamburg’s district court.
Prisoners in Stutthof were killed by being shot in the back of the neck, poisoned with Zyklon B gas, and denied food and medicine, court documents allege.
The defendant has admitted to being a guard at the camp, but told the court at the beginning of his trial that he had no choice at the time. Over the last few months, the court has heard harrowing testimonies from witnesses who now live across the globe.
Stutthof was a Nazi concentration and extermination camp located 22 miles east of Danzig, which is now the Polish city of Gdańsk.
First established by the Nazis in 1939, Stutthof went on to house a total of 115,000 prisoners, more than half of whom – some 65,000 – died there. Around 22,000 went on to be transferred from Stutthof to other Nazi camps.
Six million Jewish people died in Nazi concentration camps during World War II. Also killed were hundreds of thousands of Roma people and people with mental or physical disabilities.
This story has been updated.
The Evidence of Silence Peter Loth
I met Peter Loth in a restaurant many years ago.
You know, I spent years sitting at the feet of Messianic teachers. These weren’t just random preachers—they were men I loved and looked up to. They told powerful stories. Messianic teachers prayed dramatic prayers. They spoke about miracles, changed lives, and how Jesus fulfilled the Jewish Scriptures.
One of those teachers and friends was a man named Peter Loth.
Peter claimed he was a Jewish Holocaust survivor. He said he had been in the Stutthof concentration camp. He spoke with such emotion and such detail that when he prayed or taught, people’s lives were genuinely touched. I watched it happen. I believed him.
One day, as I began to write an essay about my experience as a Messianic Jew, I was going to use Peter as a story in my blog when my friend Rex said this:”
The Testimony Will Not Help
Peter Loth—full name Moshe Peter Loth (he changed it around 2015)—is a Florida guy who went viral in 2019 for hugging a 93-year-old ex-Nazi guard, Bruno Dey, during his Hamburg trial. Loth claimed he was born September second, nineteen forty-three, right in Stutthof camp—youngest survivor ever, mom and grandma Jewish, handed off to Poles after liberation, abused in orphanages, reunited at fourteen. He wrote a book, Peace By Piece, spoke at churches, schools, even Yad Vashem—pushing forgiveness big time.
The Polt Twist: Peter is Not A Good Wittness
But here’s the twist: German outlet Der Spiegel dug in late twenty nineteen. Birth records? Protestant German family, no Jewish roots. Mom Helene was in Stutthof briefly—March to April ‘forty-three—for “re-education,” released months before he was born nearby in Tiegenhof, not the camp. Grandma died August thirtieth, nineteen forty-three, shot or something local—not gassed. Uncle Gustav? Waffen-SS on Finnish front, not camp guard. No tattoos, no experiments, no deportation with infant Loth.
He withdrew from the trial January twenty twenty, apologized, said “to the best of my knowledge” it was true—but docs proved otherwise. Court called him unreliable; prosecutors didn’t vet him hard enough. Not outright fraud like Wilkomirski—more like he believed family stories, mixed up details, maybe romanticized trauma from post-war Poland and racism here in the States (mom married a Black GI, faced KKK stuff).
No Updates The Silence is Deafing
No updates since—quiet life in Port Charlotte. His old site still lists the survivor bio, but comments call it out as fiction. If this is your friend from around twenty twelve? Sounds like he shared that tale privately. No big investigations beyond the trial fallout—mostly media embarrassment for not checking facts. Real survivors’ stories hold up; this one didn’t. Want me to hunt for his book excerpts or anything else?
The Truth Mattrers
Then one day, Peter was called to testify in court against a German guard from Stutthof. The prosecutors needed his eyewitness account of the atrocities this man had committed.
Peter took the stand… and he had nothing.
He had never been in that camp. He had never seen that guard. The entire story—the suffering, the survival, the miracles he tied to his Jewish identity—was something he had adopted. It wasn’t true.
When they asked for receipts, there were none.
I forgave Peter. I really did. But that day in court taught me something I’ve never forgotten.
Almost every Messianic teacher I sat under did the exact same thing—just on a spiritual level.
They told beautiful stories about how Jesus fulfills the Hebrew Scriptures. My teachers showed “third day” patterns in Joseph, in the Exodus, in the darkness over Egypt, and in the battle against Benjamin. They said, “This is the gospel hidden in the Old Testament.”
But when you bring them into the court of the actual text—when you ask for the receipts, chapter and verse, in context—there’s nothing there.
The Stories Do Not Match
Just like Peter, the stories don’t match the record.
The Torah never teaches that humanity is lost in original sin and needs a blood sacrifice to be saved. The “third day” passages they point to are about judgment, travel, battle strategy, or timing—not resurrection.
The path back to the Tree of Life was never lost. Rabbi David Fohrman shows us the Torah itself is that Tree, and the path is still open: tzedakah u’mishpat — doing what is right and what is just.
My teachers built entire ministries on a story that sounds Jewish, feels powerful, and changes lives… but when you check the original documents, it doesn’t hold up.
I’ve forgiven them the same way I forgave Peter.
But I can’t keep pretending the receipts exist when they don’t.
Does A Good Story Change The Evidence
That’s why I’m writing this essay.
Not out of anger. Not to tear anyone down. But because truth matters more than a beautiful story that doesn’t match the text.
The Torah already gave us the Tree of Life. It never asked for a cross to get back to it.
He was sitting there eating bacon and ham. I walked up to him and said, “What’s a Jew doing eating bacon and ham?”
Without missing a beat, Peter looked at me and said, “Well, Jesus blessed everything.”
That was the beginning of our relationship. From that moment on, Peter became a regular in my home and in my congregation. He prayed over my family. Peter prayed over my daughter when the doctors gave up hope. He told powerful stories of being a Jewish Holocaust survivor from Stutthof concentration camp.
Years later, Peter was called to testify in a German court against a former Stutthof guard. When asked to take the stand, he faced devastating evidence against him.
The Blueprint of Creation, Adam
Investigators Discover The Facts
German investigators discovered that Peter’s family was Protestant, not Jewish. His mother was held briefly at Stutthof months before he was born and was released long before his birth. His grandmother died in 1943, but not in a concentration camp. Records showed Peter himself was born in a regular hospital, not in the camp. None of his claims held up under examination.
When the court asked for evidence, there was none. Peter withdrew from the case and has refused to speak about it since.
After that day, Peter Loth stopped returning my calls. He disappeared.
And he wasn’t the only one.
COURT DOCUMENT – VERDICT
Case: The People of Israel v. The Messianic ClaimRegarding: Whether Jesus is the promised Messiah of Israel according to the TanakhPresiding: The Court of the Written Word
Findings of Fact:
The Court first called Peter Loth. When summoned to a German court to testify about his experiences at Stutthof, he was found to have lied, according to official records. His family was Protestant, not Jewish. Peter’s mother was released from the camp months before he was born. His grandmother did not die in a gas chamber. Faced with this evidence, Peter withdrew and has refused to testify further.
The Court then called the following witnesses, who had long taught that the Tanakh clearly supports the Christian narrative:
Michael Rood
Monte Judah
Tony Robinson
Brad Scott
Bill Cloud
Rico Cortez
Joe Good
Avi ben Mordechai
Eddie Chumney
Hollisa Alwine
Deanna Dye
(This poster is for illustration only) The images are not of the real people.
Hebrew Roots are Not Jewish Roots
Each of these teachers had confidently presented “third day” patterns as proof that Jesus is the Messiah of Israel. When this Court required them to produce clear verses from the Tanakh stating that the Messiah would die for the sins of the world and rise on the third day, they were unable to do so.
The court is called Elohim in the Torah. When asked to show where the Torah teaches that humanity inherited a death sentence from Adam requiring a blood sacrifice for redemption, they presented no evidence.
When pressed to demonstrate that the “third day” references they used were resurrection prophecies rather than simple timing, they fell silent.
Additional Evidence Presented by the Prosecution:
In the book Adam, the Blueprint of Creation, clear scientific evidence is presented that directly contradicts the Christian narrative:
Genetic studies show that all humans descend from three primary fathers and three primary mothers. The Jewish people carry a distinct genetic pattern directly traceable to Abraham and Jacob. Most significantly, the descendants of Aaron (the Kohanim) carry a unique genetic marker found nowhere else in the world.
This DNA evidence matches the biblical record exactly. Every place the Bible says a people or city existed has been confirmed by archaeology. The pattern of evidence is consistent and overwhelming.
Yet when these teachers were presented with this evidence, they refused to engage or testify.
Final Verdict:
The claim that the Tanakh clearly teaches that Jesus is the Messiah of Israel who would die for sins and rise on the third day has no textual support.
The original documents contain no such teaching. The Tree of Life was never lost to Israel. The path back to it was never taken away.
The silence of the witnesses is not neutral. In a court of law, when those who once spoke boldly refuse to testify when challenged with evidence, that silence speaks loudly.
